Silent “T”
When we say a letter is “silent”, this means that it is present in spelling but not pronounced. There is always a loose relationship between spelling and pronunciation in English. Nearly every word in the language has an inconsistency, silent letter, and/or exception that must be memorized.
While some pronunciation teachers/ speech coaches will tell you to ignore spelling and focus on pronunciation, it can be useful to take note of spelling and pronunciation inconsistencies to help avoid confusion and prevent mispronunciations.
Silent “t” can be found everywhere in English. There are three places where “t” is nearly always silent. These are sequences -sten, -ften, and -stle. In many of these cases, the root word contains a /T/ in pronunciation, but the addition of a suffix (word ending) has resulted in the removal of /T/ in the history of the language. In these cases, the pronunciation of /T/ was lost, but the spelling was maintained.
Here are some examples of -sten
hasten /HAY suhn/ or /HAY sehn/
moisten /MOY suhn/ or /MOY sehn/
christen /KRIH suhn/ or /KRIH sehn/
glisten /GLIH suhn/ or /GLIH sehn/
Some exceptions include words like tungsten, stenography, and stenosis, where the “t” letter is associated with the pronunciation of /T/. Notice that in these exceptions the root of the word is unique (as in tungsten) or the “sten” is not associated with a suffix and comes earlier in the word.
Here are examples of silent “t’ with the -ften sequence:
often /AH fuhn/
soften /SAH fuhn/
Both of these words end with the /fuhn/ pronunciation.
Here are words with the -stle sequence:
whistle /WIH suhl/
castle /KAE suhl/
jostle /JAH suhl/
wrestle /REH suhl/
rustle /RUH suhl/
bustle /BUH suhl/
In each of these words, the -stle ending is pronounced as /SUHL/.
There are many other words that have a silent “t”. There are often borrowed from French, where the French version did not pronounce the “t” and the English borrowers followed suite:
ballet /bae LAY/
gourmet /gor MAY/
chalet /shae LAY/
rapport /ruh POR/ or /rae POR/
ricochet /RIH kuh shay/
Finally, there are words where “t” is silent that do not follow and obvious pattern. Here are a few examples:
chestnut /CHES nuht/
Christmas /KRIHS muhs/
mortgage /MOR guhj/
If you are unsure if a “t” is pronounced in a word, you can look it up in a dictionary like Merrian-Webster online. They have audio recording for each word in the general American English accent.
Written by Sarah Sherer, PhD (3/20/23)
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